After finishing Bill O’Reilly’s “Confronting the Presidents” I realized that we had some pretty discouraging times with our former presidents. But maybe there is hope that our democracy might just survive this latest onslaught since we managed to do so in the past. Please don’t judge a book by its cover – or its author, who himself has had a challenging relationship with us. I eagerly read his book because I am fascinated with our presidents. It was a real page turner and I freely admit that most of what I wrote below are his words. Read on, and prepare to be surprised, shocked, bemused – whatever. But all of it is truly eye-opening. I had believed that our current president has said and done unprecedented things. I was wrong.
John Adams loathed the press. Although free speech was guaranteed in the constitution, he believed criticism of his policies by Jefferson was a threat to the United States. Papers said he demanded to be called “His Highness.” He spent his time before leaving office appointing federalist judges to fill as many judicial openings as possible, intending to deprive the new president of power to appoint justices.
Some critics labeled Jefferson a radical, hell bent on tearing apart the national fabric. He had very specific political views and was intolerant of opposition. He talked about weakening the federal government, yet he paid France $15 million for nearly a million square miles of land west of the Mississippi River. This was an enormous abuse of executive power because nothing in the constitution allowed the president to purchase lands from foreign governments.
James Monroe, within a week of being sworn in, believed in the expansion of the United States and coveted Florida, so he gave orders to General Jackson to seize it. A United States military governorship was set up, in clear violation of Spain’s ownership. Yet much of the American public loved the aggressive general.
John Quincy Adams lost the popular vote to Andrew Jackson by a wide margin, but Jackson didn’t get enough electoral votes, creating the charge by Jackson that Adams became president through a corrupt bargain. When Andrew Jackson succeeded Adams, the outgoing president refused to attend Jackson’s inauguration. Henry Clay described the new president as hypocritical, corrupt, and easily swayed by base men. Although this criticism angered the short-tempered Jackson, he knew the people loved him because he was one of them.
President William Henry Harrison advocated pushing Native Americans off their lands to make way for settlers.
President James Polk wanted to seize the Oregon Territory from Great Britain.
President Franklin Pierce was easily swayed and often changed his opinion based on to whom he last spoke.
President Andrew Johnson made vile attacks on Republicans and to the very end of his administration, he offered unconditional amnesty to all Confederate soldiers. He did not go to the inauguration of incoming president Ulysses S Grant.
Once again, a president is elected – Rutherford B Hayes – with fewer popular votes but more electoral college votes (one). Widespread reports of election cheating with Democrats seeking to block the counting of electoral votes. Although Hayes was named president, Democrats still refused to believe he won.
Under Hayes, the Democratic House tried to alter election laws made after the Civil War, believing that repealing these statutes would lead to their victory in the South for the 1880 presidential election. The House attempted to shut down the entire government. Democrats defunded the military and civil service.
President James Garfield had wanted revenge on those who made fun of his early years living in poverty. As he grew tall, he picked fights with those who had taunted him, enjoying the thrashing of his enemies.
Grover Cleveland was accused of pushing his way into Maria Halpin’s bedroom for sexual activity by force and without her consent.
And again, a new president – Benjamin Harrison – loses the popular vote to president Grover Cleveland – but wins the Electoral College. Cleveland’s wife told the White House butler to take care of everything because they are coming back in four years. And they did.
When running for president, Harrison made big promises to rich men, that if he were elected with their money and support, Big Business would have access to the White House. Immediately upon taking office, he had 25,000 Democrats fired from the Post Office, replacing them with Republicans.
In Grover Cleveland’s second term, America was in a financial crisis with high tariffs causing even more economic havoc.
William Howard Taft was not a man of the people, signing a bill increasing protective tariffs, and allowed public lands to be used for coal mining against Theodore Roosevelt’s land preservation vision.
Warren Harding was one of the most popular sitting presidents, which was amazing since he had a secret life, conducting many extramarital affairs and fathered a daughter out of wedlock. Further, he was not a hard worker and rarely read briefing papers. He had an insider group of politicians and industrialists and placed their personal needs before those of the nation. He allowed private oil companies to drill on public lands which was illegal. He had his inner circle of friends divert pharmaceutical supplies intended for medicinal use to bootleggers and drug dealers.
Herbert Hoover’s administration saw the calamitous collapse of the stock market, forcing newly homeless Americans into encampments. In 1932, 11,000 WWI veterans descended on the nation’s capital, because the government had promised them a bonus for their services, but Hoover refused to pay and the veterans refused to budge until they got what they deserved for serving their country. So Hoover ordered the army to remove the veterans from federal property, destroying encampments and dislodging squatters. Americans were appalled at the images in the papers, but Hoover was proud of his accomplishment, saying that his administration “knows how to deal with a mob.”
Whether true or not, there were some during Franklin Roosevelt’s time that believed he was too tolerant of Hitler and Mussolini, who sought total control over their countries. Anti-Roosevelt critics said that FDR was trying to do the same thing.
Before Truman became president, he won an election as a local judge despite having no experience in the law and no college degree.
At the end of the Watergate debacle, President Nixon tried to pardon himself before leaving office, but the Justice Department decreed that no one may be a judge in his own case. Never before had a sitting president faced criminal charges. But after President Ford pardoned him, the Washington Post said it created an expectation of criminal impunity for both sitting and former presidents.
Reagan shocked the nation with fiscal policies in cutting government funding for entitlements while lowering taxes for the rich. He is yet another president who vented to his friends how unfairly the media treated him.
If you are like I am, this isn’t exactly how we imagined our former presidents. I naively believed that there had been a civility and a devotion to the public good that has suddenly evaporated.
But perhaps Jefferson explains it best when he said that no man will ever bring out of the Presidency the reputation which carries him into it.
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